Deductibles...

We recently received our car insurance bill in the mail...ouch.  It sure does feel like all the high dollar bills come in at the same time!  I asked my husband if there was any way to get the premium down a bit (Christmas is coming soon, afterall).

 We had a couple of options.  We could make monthly payments rather than pay the entire 6 month premium at once, or we could raise the deductibles, which is nice if we don't have any accidents, but not so nice if we do.  FYI--your deductible is the amount of money YOU have to pay out of your pocket if you're in an accident.  We currently have a $100 deductible, and we were considering raising it to $500.  There's also a $250 deductible, but it didn't make a very significant difference in the premium.

Jake said that customers are always asking his advice on what to do with their deductibles, and he just can't bring himself to answer the question.  Afterall, who would want that on their conscience if it went badly?  Well, he can't tell people what's right for them, but I can tell you about our our decision-making process.

Both Jake and I have had an accident where we were at fault...one each. (But Jake's been rear-ended a half a dozen times, so clearly I'm the better defensive driver, right honey?)  We discussed how much money we've paid in car insurance during the past decade.  Then we added up how much was probably paid out for our accidents.  In the end, we found that we had paid more money in premium than what was paid out for our accidents.  We came to the conclusion that it was probably best for us to raise our deductibles--we're pretty safe drivers and we could manage to scrape up $500 if there was an accident.

But wait!  We knew we were going to be traveling quite a bit during the next few months--lots of holidays and tis the season to spend time with family.  We decided to wait until after the holidays to raise the deductibles.  We could change them anytime, we reasoned.  In the end, we agreed that Jake would check out the actual numbers at the office the next day, and we would take it from there.

Recently, Jake had been hearing about some new coverages that were being offered at a lower price than the old ones.  He checked out our policy and we qualified for better roadside assistance (with more towing miles) AND accident/speeding ticket forgiveness.  We got these additional services for $5 less per month than before.  Awesome.  For now, we're going to stick with our low deductibles.  We'll see what the future brings--it's nice to have options.

The moral of the story is that it can never hurt to check on your policy and make sure that you're getting the best coverages and services for your family and price range.  Also, you can call Jake and see if you qualify for the cheaper, better services we just got :)

That's a picture of my car 5 years ago when she was brand new.  She's been a great car!!